


Fly By Night

by ilokheimsins



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, M/M, Mafia AU, Weird Magic, accidental child adoption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 18:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11213478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilokheimsins/pseuds/ilokheimsins
Summary: Derek is essentially a glorified bouncer for the McCall mafia, or he would be if the rest of these assholes didn't also have supernatural powers.





	Fly By Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sterek 2017 Reversebang!
> 
> This was a good way to get over my writer's block and the picture from [frogsandboxes](frogsandboxes.tumblr.com) is lovely.

Derek runs inquisitive fingers down the graffiti, wincing when it warps to hiss at him angrily.  He bares his fangs at it and it stings him before slithering down the wall.  He sucks his finger into his mouth to get rid of the little dot of red that wells up from the wound.

“Derek?” Erica asks from behind him.  He turns to see her holding a wriggling black shadow that’s clawing desperately at her hand.

“I don’t like this,” Derek jerks his head towards the mark, “I’ve never smelled this kind of magic before.  I can’t even tell what made this.”

Erica swipes a finger through the leftover dust, the outline of the runaway graffiti, and licks it, making a face when it hits her tongue.

“Eugh,” she says emphatically and then sneezes.

Derek rolls his eyes and nods at the thing she’s holding.

“How did you catch it?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” she says.  “I just scuffed a circle into the dirt over there and it ran into it.”

It squirms again and she shakes it like a naughty kitten.  She turns on her heels and leads him over to the circle she’s made.  It’s crooked and broken in one spot.

“That happened when I caught this thing,” she points to the broken spot.

Derek lifts his face and scents the area more thoroughly.  Aside from the smell of aerosol, which was clearly the medium of the graffiti, there’s nothing.  It’s as if someone scrubbed the area clean of all scents, incriminating or not.

“There’s nothing else here.  Let’s take that to Stilinski.”

“Ooooh, going to see your boy toy are we?” Erica says delightedly.

“He’s not my boy toy,” Derek grumbles in reply, but he can feel the tips of his ears turning red.

“Mmmhm, sure boss, whatever you say.”

***

“It’s a conjuring of some kind,” is what Stiles tells them when he sees the squirming blob wrapped around Erica’s neck.  She’d let it go once they were in the car and it had immediately settled into her lap, purring up a storm.

The area they think is its head perks up from Erica’s shoulder and sniffs curiously at the hand Stiles sticks out.  A little black tendril sticks out and licks Stiles’ hand before it snaps back and curls up onto Erica’s head to perch.

“Yeah, definitely a conjuring,” Stiles confirms and turns to his shelves to rummage through them.  He yanks absently at the bottom of his waistcoat, cream colored today, and Derek drags his eyes away from the way it settles back into the narrow tuck of Stiles’ waist.

“The conjurer was either not very strong or not very experienced,” Stiles says.  He pulls a book off and licks his fingers before turning the pages. Derek’s eyes stray to the dart of Sties’ tongue before he snaps back to attention. Derek can see Erica smirking at him out of the corner of his eye and he resolutely keeps himself from flipping her off.

“You shouldn’t be able to turn the affections of a conjuring once they’re fully mature,” he says as he continues to flip through the book.  “They’re notoriously protective of their creators and anyone their creators ask them to protect.  Really vicious too.  Basically the perfect guard because they can’t be hurt and they can be created from any medium.  Where did you find it?”

Derek snaps back to attention after zoning out slightly during Stiles’ ramble and says, “Uh.  It was drawn up on a wall by one of the warehouses in the lower district.”

“What was it made out of?”

“Chalk and graffiti paint,” Erica answers.  “This one specifically was made out of chalk only.  And it ran into a circle I made in the dirt.”

She’s leaning up against the door, the thing curled up in the crook of her elbow as she pets it absently.

“Huh,” Stiles says and peers at it a little closer.  “Has it grown at all since you caught it?”

Erica lifts the thing up into the air and it sneezes at her.

“Yeah, now that you mention it.  It has.  It also looks more like an animal now than a blob,” she says.

“A child then,” Stiles murmurs and turns another page.  He lays it flat out on the table and points to a similar drawing of a long black shape that clearly has several paws and what looks like a snout but no other distinguishable features.  He taps one long finger against the paragraph underneath the image.

“Conjurings created by children are the only kind that grow and change shape.  Children are also the only ones capable of creating immature conjurings.  It’s because their magic is unstable to begin with, so anything they create carries that instability with it too.”

“So some kid’s going around drawing these things on warehouses and then erasing their presence once they leave?” Derek asks.

Stiles furrows his brow, “What?”

“There weren’t any scents in the area.  Just the smell of the spray paint,” Derek clarifies.

Stiles shakes his head.

“That’s not possible.  Conjuring’s a single skill.  Conjurers can’t do anything with their magic except conjure.  So there had to have been someone else.”

“So there’s—” Erica gets as far as saying before the door to Stiles’ office bangs open and one of the family’s junior members comes tumbling in.

“There’s a problem on the southern border,” he pants out.  “Boss has asked the three of you to help deal with it.”

Stiles grabs his belt, which is laden with the different things he needs to cast, and buckles it on.

“Who’s there already?”

“Isaac and Boyd.  But the thing just won’t die.”

“Got it,” Derek says, “southern border, you said?”

“Yeah.”

“Stiles,” is all the warning Derek gives before he tumbles forward, shifting into full form before his front paws hit the ground.

“Aw, yesssss,” Stiles fist pumps and swings himself up onto Derek’s back.  Erica charges forward to open the door and then they’re making their way across open forest.  He picks up Isaac’s scent and veers slightly right, Erica matching him.

They’ve only made it halfway to the border when Isaac and Boyd come thundering towards them, a huge black shape crashing through behind them.  Derek barks sharply and pulls to the left, running towards a clearing he knows is close by.  Isaac and Boyd pull into formation behind him, Isaac cradling his arm as he runs.

Derek does a sharp about face once his pack has reached the center of the clearing, carefully bucking Stiles off as he does so.

“Hey!” Stiles says indignantly as he flails through the air.  Boyd obligingly catches him and sets him down.  Stiles quickly sets to work splinting Isaac’s arm once he’s on the ground, expression sober as he winds gauze imbued with healing properties.  Derek charges back towards the monster bearing down on them and leaps at it, jaws wide.  He hits it and then keeps going, teeth closing down on air.

It feels like moving through mud and no matter how he snaps his jaw, there’s nothing for him to bite down on.  He tumbles out the back and shifts back, black smoke pouring out of his mouth and nose as he heaves.  The ozone scent of Stiles is suddenly by his side as Stiles puts a quick reassuring hand on his neck and then gets to work mixing the things on his belt.

“Swallow this,” Stiles says, tipping a glass up to Derek’s mouth.

Derek does as told, immediately yanking himself away from Stiles to vomit.  His airway clears up and he croaks a thank you at Stiles before joining his betas again.  Boyd is keeping the thing away from Isaac and Erica keeps trying to attack.  It finally gets a lucky blow in or either gets irritated with the way Erica is darting around because it lashes out, sending Erica flying through the air into a tree.

The shadow, content to clutch Erica’s shoulder and wind through her curls until now, launches itself off her shoulder, twisting and expanding in the air.  It sprouts limbs as it grows and meets its opponent before it can bear down on Erica.

“Squishy, no!” Erica coughs out and scrambles out of attacking range.  She narrowly ducks what looks like a tail as it breaks through a tree, swishing through the space where her head had been less than a second ago.  She dodges the splinters and regroups by Isaac and Boyd.

“Squishy?” Boyd says.

“A la Finding Nemo,” Erica says.

Squishy shrieks and splits in half before engulfing the other monster.  There’s a moment where it looks like Squishy might burst before it grows larger and settles back into the new six legged form it’s chosen.  It sits down and tips its general head area at Erica, tail thumping happily.

“What the fuck,” Isaac says.

Derek doesn’t say anything, but the sentiment is definitely there.  Squishy curls itself back around Erica, distraught that it can no longer fit on her shoulder.  It settles for cuddling in close and flopping its head over her shoulder instead.  It continues squirming around her neck until it finally reaches what it deems peak comfortableness, which makes it look like Erica is wearing a haute couture scarf0.

“We should…I don’t know.  We should go home and think about this,” Stiles says finally when the silence keeps stretching.

As it turns out, Boyd and Isaac came out to the border in one of the trucks before they got out to investigate the weird black lump.  Derek takes the driver’s seat, no questions asked, and Stiles insists on Isaac taking shotgun so the bumpy ride in the truck bed doesn’t fuck up his arm healing.  He piles into the truck bed with Erica and Boyd.

“How do I make it small again,” Erica inquires.  Squishy is trying to fit its entire body into her lap, demanding to be pet all the while.  It manages to arrange four limbs onto Erica but then adding another or its tail forces one to pop off.  It chitters angrily at the disobedient appendage before trying again.

“I, uh, I don’t know if you can,” Stiles says truthfully.  “They’re supposed to get up to the size of houses in most cases.”

He scribbles a quick note in the book he always carries around.

“I didn’t know they could eat each other though,” he says.

They go over a particularly large bounce in the road and Squishy tumbles off Erica’s lap.  It grumbles a bit and then chooses to stretch out over the bed of the truck instead, oozing like liquid to consume all the leftover spaces between the three of them.

“They also don’t get violent like that when they’re away from their creator,” Stiles muses.  “Unless someone took it away and used it as an method of attack instead of defense.”

No one questions why someone might want to attack them.  They’re the McCall family, the strongest mob clan in the SoCal area.  So far though, being made up of people who are seemingly invincible has been enough to deter the other families, who they’ve scoped out as being completely human.  It’s not out of the realm of possibility, though, that someone has discovered they’re not human and taken the appropriate countermeasures against them.

“We need to tell Scott then,” Erica says.

Stiles nods and then stretches over the side of the bed until he can see himself in the side view mirror.

“Yo, Derek, how’s Isaac doing?”

“Get back into the truck before you get squished,” Derek snaps at him.  “And he’s doing fine.”

“I’m in pain,” Isaac yelps.

“You’re being a child,” Derek snipes back.

“Isaac’s doing great, in case you were worried,” Stiles informs Erica and Boyd after he’s withdrawn all limbs back inside the truck bed.

“Wasn’t worried,” Erica says and runs her nails down the parts of Squishy she can reach. 

“What do you think this is?” Boyd asks.

“Someone’s probably figured out we’re not all human,” Stiles says.  He pauses thoughtfully and then shrugs, “Or they’re just sending these things to take out all their rivals and they happened to start with us.  We’ll never know.”

Boyd raises an eyebrow, “How likely is that?”

“…Yeah, not so much.  It wouldn’t be worth risking exposure to attack humans with supernatural creatures,” Stiles admits.

Boyd nods and Erica’s face darkens.  It’s taken them years to build up to where they are now, safe and comfortable in their power, and they can all remember the early days when they were in a constant state of terror.  They’ve all reached the point where they’re no longer interested in negotiation.  An attack on the family can only be met with swift and brutal retaliation that results in elimination.

***

“So basically there’s someone who knows we’re not human and now they’re trying to take us out,” Scott says.

“Yup, Scotty ol’ boy, got it in one,” Stiles says approvingly.

“Whyyyyyy,” Scott whines and flops down onto his desk.  He looks up, puppy eyes on full display and lower lip pushed out in a pout.

“You’re powerful, people want our territory, and we happen to have models as our takedown team,” Stiles lists off, ticking each item off on his fingers.

“’M not a model,” Derek grunts.

“Right, sorry, my bad.  We happen to have sex gods as our takedown team,” Stiles amends dutifully.

“Stiles, I really don’t want to know about the sex you guys have.  No matter how good it is,” Scott says, nose scrunched up at the thought of having to hear about Derek and Stiles banging.

“It’s great,” Stiles says mildly and Scott makes an ew face, just as expected.

“I had to listen to you talk about Allison’s boobs for years.  You get to listen to me wax poetic about Derek’s tits too,” Stiles tells Scott.  He turns to Derek and pats his left pec, “Sorry boo, these are just too perfectly plump for me to keep to myself.”

“Stiles, I was perfectly fine with my life without you telling me you told other people about my chest,” Derek sighs.

“Your ears are red,” Stiles says, delight coloring his voice.  He darts to the side and Derek maneuvers to stare him dead on.

“Oh come on,” Stiles huffs, “you know that doesn’t work because your ears kind of stick out.”

Derek growls and snaps his teeth at Stiles, who only leans in to kiss him.

“No, stop,” Scott says, waving his hands wildly, “not in my office.  Outside my office.  Also we need to figure out who’s doing this.  Stiles, you’re assigned to that and oh my god please get out before you have sex on my desk.  I need to keep it pure.”

“Aye aye, captain,” Stiles salutes and drags Derek to the door.  He opens it and waves Derek through with an elaborate bow that has Derek huffing through his nose, though his mouth quirks up slightly in amusement.

***

“Uuuuuugh, Isaac is such a babyyyyy,” Stiles whines as he shuts the door.

“Hmm?” Derek flips a page in his book and scooches a couple inches left on the bed to make room.

“All I did was put some healing gunk on his arm and he started complaining about the smell,” Stiles says as he kicks off his pants.

“It does smell bad.”

“I know it does.  But he’s the only one who complains about it,” Stiles grumbles.  He crawls into bed and shoves at Derek’s arm until he holds it up long enough for Stiles to occupy the newly vacated space.

“What did Deaton say about how long it’s taking to heal?”

“It’s abnormal, for sure,” Stiles yawns and flings his arm over Derek’s stomach, “but Dr. D doesn’t think it’s anything to worry about.”

Stiles quiets for a moment, brow furrowing slightly as he mulls over his thoughts. 

“I think we should go check out the warehouses again,” he says finally.

Derek grunts in agreement and Stiles rolls his eyes.

“Sometimes cloaking magic wears off,” Stiles insists.  “It depends on how powerful the mage was.”

“And you think it’ll wear off in a day?” Derek asks.

“It could,” Stiles shrugs.  “Dunno until we try.”

“Mmkay,” Derek says and noses at Stiles’ hair.  “We’ll go in the morning.”

“If we have until morning…” Stiles says.  He pushes up onto his elbows and waggles his eyebrows.

“We need sleep,” Derek says.

“Awwww, is the big bad wolf lacking stamina?” Stiles coos and pats Derek’s stomach.

Derek growls and flips them over, pushing Stiles into the pillows.

“I’ll show you lack of stamina,” he says and Stiles laughs.

“Alright, sourwolf.  Wow me,” Stiles says and pulls Derek in for a kiss.

***

There’s a distinct sense of déjà vu as Erica comes back into view, this time holding a squirming child by the nape instead of a squirming shadow.

“Erica,” Derek sighs, “put the kid down.”

Erica ignores him completely, as she does, and says, “She was drawing over there.  Had a bag of spray paint and chalk with her too.”

Derek looks the kid over again.  She can’t be more than ten and she’s trying to stay strong, though the wobbly lower lip isn’t helping that endeavor.

“Show me.  And give me the kid.  You’re scaring her,” Derek says.  Erica passes the kid over and Derek hauls her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.  The kid struggles for a moment before apparently coming to terms that she won’t be able to get away.  Derek ignores the wiggling limbs as the kid tries to kick him blindly in the face.  He follows Erica under a low growing tree, ducking the lowest branches.  On the other side is a wall, likely one of the warehouse walls, which has a giant white wolf skull sprayed on it with a white circle around it.

“Don’t touch it,” the kid says suddenly.

Derek shuffles the kid so that she’s balanced on his hip instead.  The kid clutches Derek’s shirt tight and gives him an indignant look that clearly says she thinks she’s way too old to be carried around like this.

“Look, just tell Erica why she shouldn’t touch it.  Because she’s definitely about to touch it,” Derek says and the kid whips her head around.

“No!  Don’t touch it.  They’ll be mad at me if you touch it,” she tells her.

Erica stops, hand hovering bare inches from the wall.

“Who’s going to be mad at you?” Derek asks.

“They were mad at me when I lost two of them last time,” the kid sniffles.

Derek looks at Erica over the kid’s head and ticks one of his eyebrows up.  The kid’s clearly talking about Squishy and the one that ran away from Derek.  Erica inclines her head slightly to show that she’s caught onto what Derek’s thinking of.

“And it’s not done, so you can’t touch it,” the kid insists.

“It looks pretty done to me,” Erica says approvingly.  “This is amazingly well done.”

“It needs a body.  It’s an animal.  It needs a body,” the kid tells her firmly.

“Back to the subject at hand,” Derek cuts in when Erica opens her mouth to engage the kid on whether or not skull animals need bodies, “who’s going to be mad at you?”

She clams up instantly and shakes her head.  Erica raises her eyebrows at Derek and jerks her head in the general direction of the house.  He tilts his head up slightly to scent the air, just to see if the other person Stiles mentioned is in the area.  When the breeze comes back clean, Derek nods and they set off for the car.  It’s more likely that someone else with a better touch with children will be able to get something out of her.

***

Danny’s just laying out cookies to cool when they come in through the kitchen entrance.  Derek puts the kid in a chair and takes a cookie off the rack, ignoring Danny’s sigh of resignation, and passes it to the kid.  He slides into the chair across the table from her and watches as she shoves the cookie into her mouth with a single-minded focus and more desperation than a child her age should have.  Derek looks over at Danny to see if he’s in line with what Derek’s trying to get him to do.

Danny is frowning at the way the girl is eating and he passes her a few more cookies, which are all devoured so fast Derek’s not even sure she chewed.  He also clocks the way her eyes are darting around, cataloguing all possible escape paths.

“You won’t be able to run away,” Derek says and her eyes snap back to him guiltily.

“How do you know?” She says rebelliously, sticking her chin out to match her tone.  “I’ve escaped from a lotta places before.  You ain’t the first.”

“You ever tried to run away from werewolves before?” Derek asks and flashes his eyes and fangs at her to underscore his point.  She lets out a squeak and pushes back from the table in her chair so far that she topples.  Danny catches her before she’s fallen more than a couple inches and sets her back upright.

“Even if you got out of the house, we can smell you in the forest,” Derek continues offhandedly.  “We could catch you instantly.”

“I can get rid of my smell,” she says smugly, like she’s got the key to defeating them.

“We also have an emissary,” Derek says, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over his chest.  “I’m assuming you’re from some sort of pack, so you must know what they are.  He told us all about conjurers and how they only have one type of magic.”

“I’m not going,” she cries out and leaps out of her chair, angling for the door.

Danny catches her and puts her back in the chair, soothing her through the sudden bout of crying, accompanied with hiccoughs and broken pleas to be kept away from the emissary.  Danny makes eye contact with Derek and subtly jerks his head towards the door.  Derek takes the hint and slips out.  It’ll make life easier for everyone if he leaves and lets Danny figure everything out.

***

He’s napping on Stiles in the main library, face shoved into the expanse of skin where Stiles’ shirt has pushed up slightly, when Danny comes to find them.  Derek wakes up a bit, vaguely able to piece together Stiles and Danny talking above him.  The hands in his hair feel too good and if he wakes up, Stiles might stop petting him

“…Duke family…” Danny says and that’s what perks Derek out of his Stiles induced stupor.

“Wh’bout the Duke family?” He asks groggily.  The Duke family is a relatively new one to the scene but they came in fast and no one has been able to figure out how they came into power so quickly.

“That’s who the girl was working for,” Danny says and makes a face.  “Well, I guess you wouldn’t really call it working for.  They found her about a year ago when they came across her in a park drawing and making her drawings come to life.  They kidnapped her.  She wasn’t originally one of theirs.”

“How did they know anything about what she could do?” Stiles asks.  “Aren’t they human?”

“Remember how we couldn’t figure out how they came out of nowhere?”

Stiles and Derek nod and Derek nuzzles into the crease of Stiles’ hip just for good measure.  Stiles responds by absently swirling his fingers through the whorl at the top of Derek’s hair, nails scratching lightly.

“I think they have an emissary.  There used to be an alpha pack a while ago, back in Peter and Talia’s time.  It was lead by a wolf called Deucalion.  They eventually got put down because they were involved in slave trafficking and a couple of the other families didn’t like that.  Against their family or moral code or something.  I think they killed everyone except the emissary, who was out of town from what I can tell.”

“So Duke is for Deucalion,” Derek hazards and groans as he pushes himself upright.  It’s clear that he’s not getting anymore naptime, which sucks but the family comes first.

Danny nods, “But Deucalion’s gone for sure.  It’s probably just in memory of him.”

Derek shakes himself out like a dog, groaning as his spine pops and the tension bleeds out of his lower back.  Stiles latches onto Derek’s shirt, using it to drag himself up.

“We got a date with them then?” Stiles asks as he and Derek follow Danny back to the kitchen.

“If we don’t want to be wiped out, we should strike preemptively,” Derek mumbles.  “The kid probably knows something about the layout of the house and where the weak points are.”

“The kid’s name is Lyssa,” Danny says, “and she’s scared of emissaries.”

“D’you think…” Stiles trails off and Danny nods at the implication.

“They probably hurt her until she gave them what they wanted,” Danny says and pushes the kitchen door open.

“Hey, Lyssa?” He says gently.

The girl looks up and her eyes widen with fear when she catches sight of Stiles.

“Lyss,” Danny says placatingly, “Stiles won’t hurt you.  The family code won’t allow it.”

She settles a little at Danny’s reassurance but the tension doesn’t bleed out of her shoulders as she tracks Stiles around the table with her eyes.  Stiles slowly sits in the seat catty corner from her, giving the closer seat to Derek.

“Lyssa,” Derek says, “what can you tell us about the Duke family?”

“I want to go home,” Lyssa says.

Derek looks up at Danny and tilts his head in question.

“She’s got a family, a real one.  Not the people who took her,” he explains.

“We’ll get you home,” Derek promises.  “But first you have to help us.”

Lyssa stares at him, assessing him with far more maturity than a child her age should have.

“And if I don’t help you, what happens?”

“We take you home anyway,” Derek says and leans back in his chair, affecting an air of insouciance.  He grins at Lyssa, teeth on display.  “But there’s no guarantee they won’t come for you again and if they do, we can’t help.  In fact, if they come for you, we’ll wipe you out along with them.  Collateral damage, you know.”

Lyssa whips her head around to look at Danny, who’s studiously examining his oven.  His mouth is tight at the corners and though he knows killing a child is wrong, he also knows that Derek will do anything to make sure the family survives.  And he will slit the throats of people the world over before he lets Stiles come to harm.

“Lyssa,” Stiles calls out and Lyssa turns back to face him.  “What do you say?”

***

Six hours later, they’re suited up in the forest that runs the border of the huge clearing that the Duke family mansion sits in.  In the distance, the moon is beginning to rise, a bright patch of white in the grey, cloud covered night.

Stiles runs a fond hand over the lock and key tattooed on Derek’s neck, just above the triskelion.

“Hope we won’t have to use this,” he murmurs.  Derek dips his head in agreement.  The spell that Stiles wove to push them past their limits needs a transformation that feels like it’s ripping their bodies apart.

“We might have to,” he replies.

“Fingers crossed we don’t though,” Stiles says.  Stiles’ phone beeps and he picks it up to see a message from Lydia informing them that she and Allison and Kira are happily mowing through their enemies.  He sends her back the thumbs up emoji and slips his phone back into his pocket.

The wind shifts and Derek tips his head to the sky.  It’s flowing toward them now and carries nothing on it.  Derek sighs; he hates dealing with enemies that can erase their scent.

“Let’s go,” he whispers and the others perk up, shaking out into their beta forms.

The clouds pass over the brightness of the moon again and Derek leaps out of the forest, the betas close at his heels.  They’ve barely run a third of the way through the clearing when the ground explodes ahead of them.  Derek howls and leaps as his bit of the ground breaks and starts to crumble.  He can see the others contending with their own precarious footing out of the corner of his eye but a flash of black from the direction of the mansion catches his eye and he turns toward it.

The clouds move away from the moon then and the sudden illumination of the clearing makes it clear that they’re outnumbered by far, conjurings seething together, thick and packed together as far as the eye can see.  In front of them is a veritable army, at least a couple hundred people by Derek’s quick estimation and at the center of it all, the current don of the Duke family.

***

“Havell,” Lyssa says and points at a photo.  It’s grainy but distinguishable and Derek commits the face to memory.  “He’s the king right now.  It used to be John, but the emissary didn’t like him, so she got rid of him.  He’s got some magic but not much.  Only enough to hold the leash of all my drawings.”

Havell looks like an easygoing man, jovial smile in place, but it’s a bit plastic, like someone taught him how to smile but didn’t tell him he needed to put warmth behind it.  It’s a smile that makes Stiles shiver.

He remembers that conversation as Erica goes sailing over his head.  Her landing is cushioned by several trees and when he hurries over to heal her up, he discovers blood flowing from her head.

“How many fingers?” He asks, holding four up.

“C’mon, batman,” Erica slurs, “eight, duh.”

“Alrighty, you’re concussed.  Drink this and keep your head up,” Stiles says.  He tips her head back and pours a little vial of liquid down her throat.

“That’s disgusting,” she coughs out.

“Keep your head up,” he orders and runs over to help Isaac, who comes skidding down another bit of unstable ground.  He holds his arm out for Stiles to look at, what looks like teeth mark oozing sluggishly from near his elbow.

Boyd is next, landing heavily on the ground, putting frantic pressure on a hole in his torso.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Stiles swears, with great feeling, and abandons Isaac to deal with Boyd first.

Derek is the last to return to the forest, pushed into retreating by the sheer number of enemies.  He roars and Havell laughs.  He raises a hand to stall his men and swaggers forward.

“I was told the McCall clan had the favor of a mage and his war beasts,” Havell sneers as he looks over the picture before him.  Stiles is too busy frantically binding up wounds and telling Erica to keep her head up to bother responding.

Derek snarls and surges forward, jaws snapping, when Havell takes another step forward.

“Derek, stop,” Stiles orders.  Derek settles into a crouch, hands against the ground, and his snarl dies down to a low rumble deep in his chest.

“What is it, spark?  Are you nothing without your mage and his animals?” Havell taunts.  “You’re naught but a sad man and his sad little wolves.”

He sighs theatrically, hand going to his brow as he feigns a swoon.  The pack of conjurings has retreated farther back and an army of people has taken their place.  Derek’s eyes tick over the mob, estimating numbers as he does so.  They’re still far outnumbered but Derek stays low, ears twitching when he hears Stiles stand up.

“It hurts that such a pitiful family has risen to such heights,” Havell says, shaking his head.  “It saddens me, but I will be doing the underworld a favor and taking you out.”

“You need to shut up,” Stiles snaps.  He’s moved so that he’s standing by Derek, left hand carding absently through Derek’s hair.

“Are you going to stop me then?”

Stiles ignores the question, “You called them war beasts, didn’t you?  Who told you that name?  It’s clearly incorrect.   Our fights never escalate into becoming wars because none of our enemies ever leave the first battle.”

“Hmm, is that the pride and ego of trash speaking?” Havell turns back to Stiles and a shiver skitters down his spine.  There’s electricity gathering at Stile’s fingertips, dispersing through Derek’s hair and sparking into nothingness.  Havell suddenly remembers one of his oldest lessons about the different levels of magic.  He remembers his teacher labelling the magics and putting elemental control as one of the most difficult.

“You never wondered why the McCall family was so small?” Stiles asks, head cocking slightly.

“You’re small because you’ve got powerful allies,” Havell replies, but there’s a doubt growing in the back of his mind.  It niggles at him, asking him why a powerful family would want ties to such a small family if they were not powerful as well. The doubt tells him that the man in front of him is a powerful spark and what, if anything, separates a spark from a mage?

“Did you ever ask what sort of beasts the mage had by his side?” Stiles continues on.  He’s not speaking very loudly but it’s as if the entire world has stopped to hear what he has to say.  The air is still and even Havell’s army is quiet.

“Did they tell you they had jaws that could bite through stone and steel?  That they were fleet on foot and when they ran, it looked like the barest shadow to the human eye?  Did they say that they were larger than anything that should exist upon this earth?”

Stiles bares his teeth in a smile that oozes danger.  His hand tightens on the back of Derek’s neck and he sends a burst of power through the tattoo there.  The ink shudders and the key slides up, inserts itself into the lock, and turns.  Derek throws his head back and howls.  The pack echoes him as he twists and transforms.  His clothes burst, giving way to black fur as he starts to grow.

Derek hates the transformation into this form.  His bones break as they reshape themselves and the combination of the pain and the sudden increase in all his senses is a potent enough cocktail to cloud his mind and momentarily blind him.

Stiles moves away from Derek, eyes still fixed on Havell.  He lets his fingers run reassuringly through Derek’s fur for another second before distance forces him to drop his arm.

“Did they ever tell you my beasts looked like wolves?”

Derek roars, maw wide open to display teeth the size of a human hand.  He crouches back and leaps, faster than Havell can move and in the next moment, there’s half a body where Havell once stood.  Derek thunders towards the rest of the army and it scatters, people screaming as he crushes them underfoot or bites them in half.

The conjurings wibble about, unable to form their own thoughts without someone to command them.  Finally, one of them breaks away to launch itself at Derek.  Derek howls as the conjuring shapes itself into a jaw and bites down into Derek’s flank.

“No!” Lyssa screams and runs out into the open.

“Who the fuck brought the kid?” Stiles shouts.

“No…no one brought her,” Boyd coughs out.  Stiles flings his hands in the air and has a makes a mental note to yell at Jackson and mildly scold Danny, who clearly forgot to keep their eyes on her for at least five seconds.

Stiles darts out after Lyssa, swearing colorfully as he runs.  Out of the corner of his eye, there’s a flash in the distance and Stiles flings up a shield in front of Lyssa that she collides into with a yell.  She falls down, disoriented momentarily, but bullets ping off the shield harmlessly.

Stiles scoops her up and an arrow comes whistling over his shoulder to neatly pick off the shooter as he reloads his gun.  Relief floods through Stiles at the sight and he retreats back towards the rest of the pack, Lyssa screaming and struggling in his arms.

“No!  They need to stop hurting Derek,” she shrieks.

“And what can you do about that if you’re dead?” Stiles shouts right back.  Lydia is with the rest of the pack, appearing as if by magic.

“Give her to me,” she demands and Stiles relinquishes Lyssa to her.

“Finished with the other side?” He asks as he looks over his options.  Isaac is the least injured and already looks well enough, if exhausted, to join the fight again.  Erica is still heaving for air, but Stiles knows that forcing the full transformation will heal that right up.  Boyd is the only one on the field that Stiles wouldn’t bank on making it through the transformation without passing out.

“Please, Stiles.  Who do you think we are?” Lydia says haughtily.  “We cleared it out but there’s something sealed over the back entrance of the mansion.  None of us could get in.  It looks like there’s a barrier over the entire house.  You’re going to need to break it.”

“Great, keep Boyd safe,” Stiles says.  Erica and Isaac perk up slightly as he jogs over to them and Erica immediately bares the back of her neck towards him.  Isaac takes a moment longer to figure out what’s going on but does the same.

“Sorry guys,” he says as he puts his hands down.

“Gotta help the alpha.  Punk ass can’t do anything without us,” Erica jokes around teeth stained with her own blood.

“Help him,” Stiles says, his voice wobbling a little bit.

“Awww, Stiles, babe.  Don’t worry, we’ll save your boy toy,” Erica says and Isaac nods in agreement.

Stiles pushes power into the tattooed locks on their necks and watches the keys turn.  Both Erica and Isaac howl as the change ripples through them.  It takes Isaac a few seconds less, having fewer wounds to heal up as he changes, and an enormous tawny wolf bounds past Stiles, an ice blonde one on its heels only seconds later.

“Stiles,” Lydia shouts.  Her voice carries a thick tone of urgency and Stiles turns to see her holding Lyssa upright as she shakes.

“Oh god,” Stiles runs back over, “Lyssa, sweetie, look at me.”

Lyssa’s head twitches and her eyes roll up.

“Stiles, what’s happening?” Lydia demands.

“It’s a form of backlash,” Stiles explains quickly as he paws through the bottles on his waist.  “My guess is that the control of all those conjurings just snapped back to her all at once and her body and magic can’t handle it.”

“So we have to channel it somewhere else,” Lydia guesses and Stiles nods.

“It’s best if we channel it into someone else,” Stiles says.  “I don’t know enough about her to be able to guess what mediums she’ll be most compatible with.  If I pick wrong, it won’t do anything.”

“I’ll do it,” Lydia says and holds her hand out.  Stiles accepts her hand without question – nothing he says will make a difference in her conviction anyway – and slices a line across the base of her fingers.  Blood wells up in the cut immediately and he tells Lydia to hold her hand palm up.  He takes Lyssa’s hand and does the same thing.

“Alright,” he says, holding Lyssa’s hand over Lydia’s. “Three, two, one…”

He pushes their hands together and quickly wraps them with the twine that he’s had soaking in mountain ash for a week.  Lyssa collapses almost immediately, breathing evening out and body going lax in sleep.  Lydia grits her teeth and clenches her hand until her knuckles go white.

Stiles covers his ear with a spell a split second before Lydia opens her mouth and screams.  He takes quick stock of the field as the sound pierces the area.  Allison is still fine, judging by the way arrows keep firing out of the woods farther down.  The sound doesn’t affect werewolves or kitsune but Havell’s human soldiers are falling, the scream of a banshee too much for them to take.

Lydia heaves for air and digs the nails of her free hand into her palm.  She gasps at the pain and whips her head around to stare at the battlefield, eyes narrowed in concentration.

“How do I control them,” she asks.

Stiles shrugs, “Not my area of expertise.  Just try thinking it?”

“Destroy the mansion,” she orders, voice tight.

Almost as one, the conjurings turn away and slither towards the house.  The one grappling with Derek drops him and he hits the ground hard.  He starts to shrink and Stiles sprints towards him.  He gets to him just as Derek is shaking off the last bits of the transformation.  Stiles rolls him over to look at the back of his neck.  The key slips free and Derek vomits, black sludge coating the ground, as it settles back into its original position.

“Shit,” Stiles pops two vials and doesn’t bother mixing them before dumping them both in Derek’s mouth.  A howl takes up towards the mansion and Stiles looks up to see Isaac and Erica charging uselessly at the mansion.  They crash into nothing, sparks floating in the air as they hit.

“Stiles,” Allison shouts and Stiles turns to see her jogging towards him, Kira on her heels.

“You need to take down the barrier or no one can get in,” she says.

“Derek…” Stiles says hesitantly.

Kira grabs Stiles face, “You are this pack’s emissary.  You have a job to keep us safe.  We’ll look after Derek but you need to do your part.”

“How you manage to convince anyone you’re a fluffy cinnamon roll is beyond me,” Stiles says in response and Kira cracks a smile.

“Alright, make sure he coughs everything out,” Stiles says and forces himself to leave.

***

“You know,” Stiles says as he blasts open the doors to the last room.  “I fucking hate hide and seek.  Always did, even as a kid.”

The Duke emissary looks at him curiously, waiting on him to continue.

“Nate, right?  You know what I fucking hate more than hide and seek?”

“Hmmm, no, I can’t say I have a guess,” Nate says, making a show of his boredom by examining his fingernails.

“I’ll be generous and give you the answer then,” Stiles says.  “I fucking hate people who hurt my mate.”

***

“Did you have to burn down the manor?” Is the first thing Scott says when he appears on the scene.  Allison rang him with the all clear when Stiles strode out of the mansion, flames licking the sky behind him.

“Yes,” Stiles says primly, “it’s necessary.”

“Duke’s emissary is alive in there, aren’t they,” Scott sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Yes,” Stiles says.

“Did you have to burn them alive?”

“Mmhmm,” Stiles hums in reply and starts checking Derek over.

“You tortured him beforehand too, didn’t you.”

“Ayup.  Scotty old boy, it’s almost like we’ve been friends all our lives and you know me so well!”

Scott throws his hands in the air, “Whatever, I don’t care.  Pack everyone up and let’s go home.”

***

Derek blinks awake and barely manages to hold back a groan.  He hates the medical area of the house.  It smells of sterilizing agent and he’s woken up here more than he’d like but less than he would have if he were human.

“You’re awake,” Lyssa’s voice says and then she’s clambering up onto his bed.

“Are you ok?” Derek croaks.

Lyssa wrinkles her nose and reaches for the glass of water at his bedside.  It’s got crazy straw in it and she holds the end of it to Derek’s mouth so he can sip without upending the glass on himself.

“I’m ok,” she says.  “You’re worse than me.”

“Not arguing with that,” he says and takes another sip.

He drains the small glass and Lyssa places it back on the table.  She points at the other glass and asks, “More?”

Derek shakes his head, “I think I’m good.  Weren’t they supposed to send you home?”

Lyssa looks down and mumbles something that Derek should be able to hear but he’s still working to get a hundred percent back online.

“What?”

“They…they killed my parents,” Lyssa repeats, barely above a whisper.

“Oh,” Derek says, “oh, god.  Lyssa, are you doing ok?”

“Yeah,” Lyssa says with a halfhearted shrug, “Stiles says I get to stay with you guys now.”

“Sounds good to me,” Derek says.  “Now I need to go back to sleep.  I think I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying.”

“Shows how much you know,” Derek manages to fire back before he passes out.

***

“You can’t have Squishy,” Erica shouts and hauls as much of the conjuring above her head as she can.  She looks absolutely ridiculous because Squishy has reached the promised size of a house and it really just looks like she’s trying to hold a giant blanket over herself.

“I made him,” Lyssa says back.

“You gotta catch me then,” Erica sticks her tongue out and books it, Squishy trailing behind her.

“Come back here,” Lyssa shrieks, laughter breaking the words, and runs after Erica.

“I’m not sorry I adopted a kid without telling you,” Stiles murmurs into Derek’s chest.

“Technically, you didn’t tell anyone,” Derek replies.  “Just came back with a whoops, I signed the adoption papers guess we’re co-parenting this kid now.”

“My spontaneity keeps us young,” Stiles says airily.

“Your spontaneity is making me go gray before my years,” Derek says lazily and presses a kiss to Stiles’ left hand.

“God, shut up.  Can’t we nap in the sun without you guys being gooey?” Isaac says and flings an empty plastic bottle at them.  It bounces off Stiles’ shoulder and he flips Issac’s general direction off.

“Children,” Lydia says warningly.  She pulls her sunglasses down just far enough to gaze at them imperiously.  “Shut up.”

“You’re the vodka aunt,” Stiles says as he snuggles into a better position across Derek.

“Please, if anything, I’m the wine mom,” Lydia says and goes back to her tanning.

“You’re the vodka aunt,” Derek says sleepily and Stiles smiles widely.

“Love you too, babe.”

He falls asleep to Erica and Lyssa laughing in the distance with the sun warm on his back and the knowledge that his family, however weird it is, is safe.


End file.
